Barbara P. Wallach, "Murderers of the Dead" in Antiphon 1

The anonymous speaker of Antiphon 1 is prosecuting his stepmother for the murder of his father. Yet, in his prooemium and ⁿ¹, he exerts more effort to discredit his stepmother's defenders (i.e., his half-brothers: ἀδελφοῖς ὁμοπατρίοις 1.1) than to attack the defendant. He even makes the surprising allegation that his half-brothers are "murderers of the dead man" (τοῦ...τεθνεῶτος φονεῖς 1.4), even though, according to the prosecutor's own admission, his father died as a result of potion acquired by the stepmother but administered by an unwitting slave woman (1.14-20).ⁿ² The phrase "murderers of the dead man" is paradoxical, for how can someone become the murderer of a man who is already dead at the hands of someone else? Even if we use the translation "murderers of the victim," some sense of paradox remains to catch our attention.ⁿ³ Why does Antiphon have the prosecutor include such an allegation? Would it surprise Athenian jurors, or is it merely a topos or a feature of Antiphon's style? To the contrary, as an examination of some of the prosecutor's options and tactics will show, this accusation reveals a crucial element of his strategy.

Before beginning that examination, I should like to stress that we have only the prosecutor's version of characters and events, which can be at least two degrees removed from reality. In other words, the speaker's ethos is a product of the speechwriter's art and, necessarily selective, is fictional to some extent. ⁿ⁴ The jury would have seen and heard a prosecution designed to garner sympathy and so win the prosecutor's case. The degree of this persona's affinity to the actual speaker might have been clearer in oral performance but cannot be determined now on the basis of the text. The case, in turn, comes to the audience through the mediation of this artificial construct, without the benefit of support beyond the prosecutor's account. We only "know" what the prosecutor tells us, especially since he produces no witnesses. ⁿ⁵ This limitation in our knowledge applies both to the modern reader and to the Athenian jurors. As T. A. Schmitz, for instance, warns us, "the only elements of the speeches that the jurors could immediately perceive as referential were mentions of people and things present in the law court. All other parts of the text merely claimed to be referential, a claim that could, due to the nature of the Athenian lawsuits, not be checked against external evidence: all trials were "she says, he says" cases, as we would call it today."ⁿ⁶ When I discuss options and tactics, I shall be considering the thinking and attitudes behind the speaker's efforts and try to fill in some gaps in his presentation of the case and the "dramatis personae." Like a typical rhetorician, I shall be relying on probabilities, and my scenario, like the prosecutor's case, will be interpretative. My concern is with perceptions, not with innocence or guilt.

Antiphon 1 is unique among extant Attic forensic orations in that it involves the prosecution of a woman for murder and features half-brothers as in a homicide case, acting as prosecutor and defense counsel respectively. This seems the type of case that might have been settled privately to avoid the embarrassment of a trial. As it is, the prosecutor is careful to place the onus for the proceedings on his half-brothers.ⁿ⁷ He claims that those who should be avengers of the dead man and the prosecutor's helpers have compelled their brother to undergo this trial.ⁿ⁸ Notably, the speaker does not elaborate here on how they have so compelled him, but his use of the singular substantive participle (τῷ δ ) ἐπεξιόντι) parallelling his reference to the victim (τῷ μὲν τεθνεῶτι) emphasizes that he is the only one taking action on behalf of his father. ⁿ⁹

The potential for odium against someone taking his relatives to court did not escape at least one early theorist. Discussing the kinds of prejudices that may arise in a forensic case, Anaximenes (Rh.Al. 1442a10, ed. M. Fuhrman, Leipzig 1966) states that prejudices associated with one's actions will occur if one is engaged in (πραγματεύσηται) a case against kinsmen, "guest friends", or personal (ἰδίους) friends. Especially relevant to the "lonely" prosecutor of Antiphon 1 is Anaximenes' comment (1442b12) that a younger man may deflect prejudice from himself by claiming a dearth (ἀπορία) of older friends who could argue the case on his behalf. Here, of course, the speaker complains of a dearth of helpful brothers.

The prosecutor's rationale for alleging compulsion does become clearer in the (1.5-13), where he depicts his as hindering the search for the truth. He insinuates that the defendant's chief spokesman is guilty of impiety () for supporting his criminal mother instead of avenging his fatherⁿ¹⁰ and complains about his opponents' refusal of the torture challenge ().ⁿ¹¹ Hence, the audience may deduce that frustration with his brother's intransigence and outrage at a perceived skewing of filial priorities have forced the prosecutor to take formal legal action. At least, the speaker could hope that the jurors would make that deduction and so turn their displeasure against his brothers.

This tactic of criticizing priorities is hazardous. The speaker has introduced himself as young and inexperienced in the courts and has declared his in the face of a dilemma forcing him to choose between disobeying his father's last command and taking his closest relatives to court.ⁿ¹² Since he refers to himself as a at the time of his father's death (1.30), the prosecutor apparently was then no older than fourteen. He would be between eighteen and twenty years old by the "dramatic date" of this trial. ⁿ¹³ Even with his youth as a factor, however, the prosecutor cannot take the jury's sympathy for granted. ⁿ¹⁴ Although they could empathize with his lone pursuit of vengeance (see Christ, note 8, 35-6), individual jurors might be skeptical and wary about being manipulated. They might even doubt that a would have been given so much responsibility by his father. Moreover, his plea of a "family-imposed" dilemma could benefit his opponents. If we accept the transmitted "facts of the case," the speaker's brothers have their own dilemma. To join in prosecuting their father's murderer, they would have to go to court against a close relative, i.e., their own mother. In fact, since he is her (see below and note 15), could the eldest son really have been expected to prosecute his mother, when he was the person who should represent her? The jury might believe that the could have avoided his problem by settling out of court, but, in countering the prosecutor's allegations about the , the defense could argue that they tried to do so. At any rate, sons who faced a dilemma in trying to defend their mother and their should be able to prevent their young sibling from garnering all of the jurors' good will.

Further, although we know little about them and see them only through his eyes, the prosecutor's siblings may all be older than he and, in comparison to him, have established reputations. The eldest at least has to be old enough to act as for his mother and to justify the speech's emphasis on the youth and themes, an emphasis which would be ludicrous if his stepmother's defender were near the speaker's own age and equally inexperienced. ⁿ¹⁵ Set against this older brother, the prosecutor, as a young man and a , risks appearing too strident or even petulant in his attacks.ⁿ¹⁶ His plea of inexperience should win him some latitude. His opponent could offset that plea, however, by implying that the younger man's naiveté has led him to go to trial unnecessarily and by showing that experience, established status, and proven value to the community make the older brother a better judge of the situation. Of course, the economic and social status of the older brother is difficult to determine solely on the basis of the speech, which only lets us glimpse the family home (1.14) and refers to the father's planned trip to Naxos (1.16), probably indicative of a business venture.ⁿ¹⁷ The possibility that an attempt to win a settlement or a portion of an inheritance is at the root of this case (see note 8) is another, but still hypothetical, sign of the family's wealth. Still, I am not assuming that the older sibling necessarily has had the time or the wealth to attain distinction. He should, however, be able to cite some participation in the affairs of the (in his deme at least), or introduce evidence that he has been a law-abiding citizen who troubles no one. ⁿ¹⁸

Since the speaker cannot allude to his own career (being too young to have one), he might bring up his father's character, accomplishments, or benefactions with a view to contrasting the worth of the victim with that of the murderer. As it is, he neither mentions any of these nor cites his father's name or pedigree. We should perhaps avoid the hazards of an argument from silence, and not make too much of these omissions. The victim's identity at least would be clear to all.ⁿ¹⁹ Further, in the sections defending his father (and attempting to remove prejudice against father and son), the defendant in Antiphon 5 also fails to give a parental name or pedigree but does include information about his father's position and career relevant to his own defense (5.74-80). The speaker in Antiphon 1, on the other hand, has a different agenda, as he tries to create and exploit prejudice against his mother's defenders. Hence, his stress is on the oaths and the . He may also feel constrained by limitations of time and prefer to highlight himself as his father's avenger and "confidant" (1.30). Moreover, emphasis on their father's status might benefit the legitimate sons more than a who may not want to call too much attention to his own social or economic position.ⁿ²⁰ The speaker, thus, has sufficient reasons to avoid a lengthy discussion of his father's merits. ⁿ²¹

If the plea of youth and will not be quite enough, clearly the prosecutor has to find a dramatic way to turn the case against his opponents from the outset. He could begin with a direct attack against his stepmother and immediately denigrate her character by mentioning her name in court, letting his failure to respect her anonymity imply that she is not a respectable woman. ⁿ²² Unless supported by credible testimony, however, such an approach can be annoying rather than beneficial, especially given the probable status of the prosecutor and his mother, to whom he never even refers.ⁿ²³ The defendant has not given him much ammunition to use in diminishing her respectability. Apparently legally married to the prosecutor's father and the mother of at least two legitimate sons, she seems to have been a respectable matron (albeit now an accused criminal). The prosecutor neither makes allegations of sexual misconduct against her nor challenges the legitimacy of her sons. He may depict his siblings as less than loyal to their father, but he does not dispute their paternity. There is no hint that the defendant has been anything other than a faithful wife. Her alleged use of the "love potion," connected to a feeling that her husband was wronging her and to a desire to restore his affection for her (see 1.15), while extreme, is still within the confines of her marriage. Her discontent apparently has sexual roots, but she is no adulteress. Her husband would have been within his rights as a respectable Athenian male if he had engaged in sexual relations with his slaves or hetairai or taken a concubine. Yet, if the jury felt that he had been too open about his extramarital activity or shamed her, they could find his wife a sympathetic character.ⁿ²⁴

Furthermore, although he attacks his brothers for siding with their mother, the speaker makes nothing of the absence of a other than the defendant's son to present her case. His stepmother presumably has no current husband and may lack an older male agnate willing or able to act on her behalf. Rumors (or direct knowledge) of a tendency to resort to a love potion could have damaged her chances for a new marriage or led her male relatives to shy away from helping her now, although clearing her of the charges would seem to be in the best interest of her . Most likely, however, she has simply preferred to have her son (or sons; see note 7 and note 15) defend her, and her choice cannot be assumed to cast doubt on her reputation.ⁿ²⁵

In general, the prosecutor seems better served if he avoids naming a woman whose identity as a defendant (whether by her name or by some periphrasis) would already be clear to the jury from the indictment. The notoriety produced by the charge is sufficient to discomfit his opponents. Her indictment would have led to speculation about her "ἐν τοῖς ἄρσεσι" who knew or knew of her family (and among those men's womenfolk as well) and so have damaged her reputation, whether deservedly or not.ⁿ²⁶ Having diminished her to that degree already, the prosecutor can afford to observe due etiquette at the trial. In addition, if he is to maintain his persona as a young man troubled by the need to take relatives to court, he must show at least a modicum of respect for the woman who is the mother of his brothers. To avoid giving his opponents an inducement to attack his mother and the jury an impression of offensive impertinence, he needs to stay away from direct insult. The stepmother will get her due later when he calls her Klytaimnestra, thereby succinctly (and hyperbolically) summoning up for his male audience the frightening images associated with that name (1.17). ⁿ²⁷ Moreover, his use of this sobriquet lets him identify his stepmother in a telling fashion without openly exceeding the bounds of propriety. ⁿ²⁸ He has attacked her by giving her a name that suits her offense but has retained "deniability" behind a rhetorical ploy. Bandying her real name about would seem a pale insult next to this one word characterization. Further, her "identification" with the legendary queen elevates the defendant to the level of a dangerous woman who has devised and carried out a plot beyond the range of the typical Athenian female (or so male Athenians should hope). ⁿ²⁹

In spite of this "Klytaimnestra's" central position as the defendant, her persona remains almost as hidden as her real name. Other participants take center stage and overshadow her. For example, at 1.3, the speaker asks the jury to exact vengeance both for their laws and for the victim, if he proves that the mother of his brothers killed their father through planning and from malice aforethought (ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς καὶ προβουλῆς）ⁿ³⁰ and had previously been caught several times contriving his death. This section functions as a statement of the charge and establishes the stepmother as the defendant. The focus of the speech immediately turns, however, from the alleged murderess to the prosecutor's isolation and his kinsmen's abrogation of their duty (1.4). Maintaining that focus, the taxes the defense with its refusal to hand over their slaves for a (1.6-13). The prosecutor argues that these slaves know of a former attempt detected and prevented by his father (1.9), and that the jury should construe his opponents' refusal to cooperate as indicative of their knowledge of guilt (1.11-13).ⁿ³¹At this point, the integrity of the defendant's is under attack. Since she is the person whose conduct is the object of the and the alleged "cover-up" by her son(s), however, the stepmother cannot be ignored in the . Yet, her role in this section is a passive one.

In a sense, she has been relegated to the "women's quarters" while the men conduct business, but she never completely disappears from consideration. Her portrayal in the speech as a whole is stereotypical in citing her evil intentions and culpability (1.3, 1.8-8, 1.17, 1.20), lack of restraint (1.22), violation of the laws (1.24), lack of pity for the victim (1.25-7), and failure to respect gods, heroes, or human beings (1.27). All of these traits are topoi generic enough to fit, mutatis mutandis, any defendant, male or female, whether on trial for a violent act or under attack in some other litigation.ⁿ³² Personalization of each topos is minimal. None is obviously "feminized", i.e., adapted beyond the facts of the case for use against a female defendant.ⁿ³³ In other words, the stepmother does not, e.g., lack restraint or fail to respect the gods specifically because she is a woman. She can be said to share these characteristics with many male defendants.

Not surprisingly, it is "in" the women's quarters that she briefly escapes from genderless topoi and where the narratio gives her more definition. Sections 14-16 tell of the friendship and plotting between the stepmother and the concubine who is to be her alleged dupe. We can assume that meetings between the two would have occurred in the women's quarters of the victim's home and so would not have been witnessed by the prosecutor.ⁿ³⁴ Men's image of women as creatures conspiring together over matters involving sexual relations can be the stuff of comedy (see Lysistrata) and would seem to reflect a topos concerning women's natures. Here that imagined conspiracy is sinister, and there are prejudicial nuances in this deceptively simple passage. The prosecutor states that his father's house had an upper room in which his father's friend Philoneos would occasionally stay (1.14). Apparently, Philoneos had brought his concubine with him, since the stepmother befriended her (1.14-5: ταύτην οὖν πυθομένη ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ αδελφοῦ ἐποιήσατο φίλην). ⁿ³⁵ The contrast between the masculine and feminine friendships is quickly apparent in the rest of the narratio. Philoneos and prosecutor's father are social equals, accustomed to enjoying each other's company and hospitality (see 1.4 and 16-18). Their relationship is straightforward and firmly rooted in the masculine world of business ventures, dining (with a concubine present), and libations. The defendant, on the other hand, has befriended a slave, her social inferior. Why would a citizen stoop to such a friendship? Did she lack female relatives or respectable female acquaintances? The speech neither explores these possibilities nor is precise about when the friendship began.ⁿ³⁶

What is important for the speaker is not precision but the impression that reaches the jury. Wondering why a woman of the defendant's status would make a slave her friend, they might see her action as compassionate, thinking that she pitied a woman who was about to be sold to a brothel. The course of the narrative, however, guides them to perceive a darker side and conclude that this unequal "friendship" resulted when the defendant saw a chance to acquire a tool to carry out her scheme. Hence, discovering that Philoneos was about to send his concubine to a brothel, the stepmother saw an opportunity to alleviate her own situation and summoned (1.15: μεταπέμπεται) her useful inferior.ⁿ³⁷ Their friendship was not real and not at all like the masculine one of her husband and Philoneos. Instead of hospitality, the stepmother offered a dangerous scheme and lured a desperate women into joining it. The slave woman was to help both herself and the stepmother by administering the potion that the stepmother would procure. Perhaps most disturbing to male Athenians, the defendant not only hatched this plot against her own husband; she also tampered with someone else's slave to carry it out. This latter point should have solidified a negative impression of the stepmother's character and of her motive for "friendship."

After the concise but vivid account of her scheming, the defendant fades from the narratio. She receives mention only briefly as the person (the Klytaimnestra) whose instructions the concubine follows in deciding when to administer the potion (1.17) and then, at the narrative's conclusion, as the guilty originator of the plot (1.20). Both of those allusions keep her in the picture as the force setting events in motion. Otherwise, from 1.16-20 the narratio focuses on the stepmother's victims, i.e., the two men and the concubine. ⁿ³⁸ The effect is almost like a "diptych," with one side a scene of two women in conversation and the other a corresponding image of men drinking and dining. The two sides are unequal, however, and the differences in the treatment are striking. The description of the female conspiracy is essentially a narrowly focused snapshot of two people on one occasion with most of the background "cropped out." Even though their status and connections with their respective males are clear, the participants in the reported conversation remain abstract. The stepmother's claim that she is being wronged should be an indication that she is angry, but she does not show any emotion. Instead, as reported by a prosecutor who is trying to prove that she acted with malice aforethought, her remarks seem coldly methodical and rational. In his account, she knows what she is doing, and her emotional state does not intrude to excuse her actions.

The other side of the "diptych" (16-20) contrasts markedly with first. In place of anonymous women conspiring at an indefinite time is a meeting between two male friends who have taken advantage of an opportunity to socialize with no ulterior motives. The prosecutor's father is about to sail to Naxos. Since he himself is going to Peiraeus to perform rites for Zeus Ktesios, Philoneos escorts his friend as far as that port and combines sacrificing and entertaining (16-18).ⁿ³⁹ Depicting them at Philoneos' home, the narrator stresses the normalcy and propriety of the men's activities. Both men seem to be well-to-do gentlemen.ⁿ⁴⁰ They do what they are supposed to do on such an occasion; yet, they unwittingly bring about their own deaths. With the assistance of the concubine, who has come along for that purpose, Philoneos performs the sacrifice appropriately (17: οἷον εἰκός; see Gagarin, note 1, 115). He and his guest dine and are ready to make libations and put frankincense on the altar, as is proper (οἷον εἰκός). Far from being redundant, the prosecutor's identification of his father at this point as "the one who is about to sail and is dining with his comrade" and of Philoneos as "the one who performed the sacrifice and is entertaining" (18) makes what follows more shocking. In the midst of a setting commonplace among Athenian men, after making prayers that, contrary to normal expectations, will not be fulfilled (19), the two men take up the wine poisoned by the concubine and quaff their last drink. With no warning, they have become the victims of female treachery.

The has not only complied with the suggestions of the stepmother (17-18) and administered the alleged love potion. She has also shown unexpected initiative and given a larger dose to her master. The prosecutor conjectures that she hoped that a greater measure would make Philoneos love her more (19). Deceived by the stepmother (19: ἐξαπατωμένη), however, the concubine becomes her third victim, but not an innocent one (20: ἡ μὲν διακονήσασα ἔχει τὰ ἐπίχειρα ὧν ἀξία ἦν). She may have acted in ignorance of the dangerous nature of the potion, but she had agreed to an "assault" on her own master and then carried it out. Further, she compounded her crime by recklessly going beyond her instructions. Her suffering may underscore the duplicity of the stepmother who employed her to take all of the risks. In attempting to use more than her share of the potion on her master, however, the reveals her own dishonest side. To the extent that she could, the slave woman was as willing to deceive the stepmother as the stepmother was to trick her. The originator of the plot would not be at hand to see how the potion was administered. With no supervision, the concubine was free to put her own interests first. Those interests, of course, turned out to be ephemeral. Hence, the tool has been executed (20), but the manipulator, still in the background, has remained unpunished until this trial. Neither, in the prosecutor's view, deserves sympathy or leniency. ⁿ⁴¹ They assumed roles unsuitable for their genders or stations. As a result, the slave who tried to control her master's emotions and change her fate has paid the appropriate penalty. The wife who risked and ultimately caused the loss of her husband's life in pursuit of her own aims should likewise suffer the consequences. If the prosecutor has delivered his narratio well, ⁿ⁴² the all male jury should have no sympathy for these women next to whose actions any wrong done by the male victims would seem mere peccadilloes. The causes would be irrelevant in comparison with the effects.

The wife whose conduct is starkly different from that of her unsuspecting husband is, of course, the person whom the prosecutor's brothers are defending at the expense of their father (21-2) and against their brother (23-7). Employing a subtle tactic throughout his oration, the speaker distances himself from this woman and attaches her firmly to his brothers. In the prooemium (1.1) and elsewhere in the speech (e.g., 1.3; 1.6; 1.9; 1.14), she is the "mother of his brothers" (μητρὶ ἀδελφῶν) or of his brother (ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ αδελφοῦ) or his opponents' mother (τὴν τούτων μητέρα). Notably, when he refers to her as Klytaimnestra, he adds "the mother of this man" (τῆς τούτου μητρός). ⁿ⁴³ His only reference to her as his stepmother comes in the narratio at 1.19. There, he asserts that the concubine who administered the "love potion" did not realize that she had been tricked by his stepmother (ὑπὸ τῆς μητρυιᾶς τῆς ἐμῆς) until already in the midst of the evil deed (i.e., one man had died immediately, and the other had become very ill). Equally chary about her relationship with his father, he waits until section 26 to use the term husband (τὸν ἑαυτῆς ἄνδρα) and does so where the impact is crucial, i.e., in a context stressing that she who failed to have pity on that husband does not deserve pity herself. For an allegedly inexperienced young man, the prosecutor (thanks to his logographer) is sophisticated in coloring his diction. By so shading his remarks, from the prooemium on, he diminishes the stepmother's status in the family and her connection with his father. ⁿ⁴⁴ At the same time, by often mentioning the victim as his father, not as the stepmother's husband, the speaker enhances his relationship to the murdered man at the expense of the defendant. The prosecutor still wants to tie his brothers to his father, however, the better to stress their lack of piety. Hence, he refers to them as his ὁμοπάτριοι and repeatedly uses "our father" to designate the dead man.ⁿ⁴⁵ Section 6 is especially telling, for its combination of "our father" and "his mother" (ὡς εὖ οἶδεν ὅτι γ ) οὐκ ἀπέκτεινεν ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ τὸν πατέρα τον ἡμέτερον) obviously illustrates both the techniques of connecting and distancing that I have been discussing here. ⁿ⁴⁶

Connections feature as a major element in the strategy of this speech, which seems to have all of its male participants enmeshed in dilemmas involving kinship obligations (see above). The prosecutor does not concede that his brothers have a dilemma, however. According to his professed code, their duty should be clear; they must focus their efforts on punishing their father's murderer, no matter who that person may be. If they ally themselves with that murderer, as they have in defending her, then they share her guilt. Hence, their brother will go on the attack throughout the speech and try to turn them into defendants, albeit unindicted ones. ⁿ⁴⁷ We have already seen how the prosecutor exploits their refusal of the torture challenge to imply complicity (see above and 1.13) on their part. In his scenario, his brothers must know or at least suspect that their mother is guilty. The prosecutor introduces his argument by wondering how his brother can say that she did not kill their father (1.6), when that brother has refused the test that could prove her innocence. At 1.8, he increases the stakes by asking how his opponent will have sworn to certainty about what happened without checking the facts through a . Reprising and strengthening this point, at 1.28 he marvels at the reckless thinking ⁿ⁴⁸ that has led his brother ⁿ⁴⁹ to swear to certain knowledge that his mother has done none of the things alleged against her (1.28: τὸ διομόσασθαι ὑπὲρ τῆς μητρὸς εὖ εἰδέναι μὴ πεποιηκυῖαν ταῦτα). Not being present at any of the events, his brother could not possibly know what happened. ⁿ⁵⁰ The progression from claiming knowledge to attesting to it under oath has a clear purpose in the speaker's strategy. If, conscious of her guilt, he has sworn to his mother's innocence, the defense counsel has at least knowingly sworn a false oath, not to mention perjured himself. In addition, he is guilty of impiety against his father for supporting the defendant (see note 10 above). He is neither a fit advocate nor trustworthy witness. Against this forswearing brother stands the , who while still a boy was the son his father trusted to be a witness and eventual advocate for him (1.29-30).

With this final section (28-31) which sets up an antithesis between the two brothers, the speaker has come full circle from the contrast between himself and his opponents that he established in his prooemium. As is now clear, his strategy has been to denigrate his brothers and elevate himself at their expense not just in the prooemium, where rhetorical doctrine advocates creating prejudice against one's opponent and good will for oneself, but throughout the speech. A major tactic in his efforts has been to use their relationship with their mother to incriminate his opponents by association. It is this tactic that the prosecutor chooses as an effective weapon to begin his speech and that explains his use of the phrase "murderers of the dead" (1.4; see above). Eager to press his case at their expense, the supposedly hesitant goes on the offensive immediately. At 1.2, he alludes to his father's command to prosecute the murderers (τοῖς αὑτοῦ φονεῦσι) and then claims that, as he and the indictment say, his brothers are his opponents at law and murderers ( αὐτοὶ γὰρ οὗτοι καθεστᾶσιν ἀντίδικοι καὶ φονεῖς, ὡς καὶ ἐγὼ καὶ ἡ γραφὴ λέγει.). Only the stepmother is officially on trial, and so both the plural "murderers" and the reference to the indictment are striking. While could be a generalizing plural, ⁿ⁵¹ and are not, for they refer directly to the defendant's sons. The identity of his opponents now clear, the prosecutor is not content with simply calling them murderers. Instead, he continues the attack in similar vein. Concluding his introduction with an emotional antithesis, he alludes to himself as the bereft son who is trying to avenge his father and is so isolated that he must call on the jury to act as his kinsmen should (1.3-4). Those who ought to be his helpers and avengers of the dead man are the prosecutor's and murderers of the dead man. In other words, even though they did not commit the actual deed, his brothers, as his , are murderers. In shunning their obligation to their father and allying themselves even after the fact with the perpetrator, they share responsibility for the crime. We might say that they, like the concubine, have become tools for the defendant. The , on the other hand, true to his father and not connected with his relatives' crime, is driven to seek refuge with the jury.

The need for sympathy from the jury is an obvious reason for the prosecutor to follow this tactic of guilt by association, but why has he been so vehement? Why does he exert as much (if not more) effort in discrediting his brothers as he does in attacking the defendant? Why has he made denigrating his brothers and elevating himself the strategy of his speech? The answer lies in the role of gender in Athenian court procedure. As Lin Foxhall has noted (note 22, 137), "lawcourts were one of a number of arenas in which males competed with each other, often on behalf of their households (to whom this arena might not be directly accessible)." ⁿ⁵² Women could appear as defendants in limited cases and, although they could not be witnesses, could swear evidentary oaths.ⁿ⁵³ The male , however, were the ones who counted, the ones who competed for the honor of victory, no matter who the defendant was. They were the ones who swore the and were capable of winning over a jury. In essence, just as in the theater, men played all of the roles, with the obvious exception of the defendant. ⁿ⁵⁴ Is that exception so obvious, however? After all, a woman's would have spoken for her and so "taken on" her role. Could he take on her guilt as well? I would assume that that would not normally be the case, but the prosecutor in Antiphon 1 has come close to making a do so. Hence, the labels his brothers "murderers of the dead" and strives throughout to make defendants of the men who are his real .